Will you help build our new visual identity?

Question

Update 15th July 2025: The poll is now closed, thank you for all that voted and participated in the spirited discussion. Option 1 was the preferred route with 49.65% (429 votes). Option 2 received 23.38% (202 votes). There were 26.97% (233 votes) empty ballots (link to the results). We are reviewing your feedback in this post, particularly around the Stack Exchange name change, its implications, and how the brand will be applied to the site experience, and will follow up soon.

Today we shared an overview of what we announced at the WeAreDevelopers conference in Berlin. Included in that was an overview of the work we’ve done developing.

Most excitingly, we have also been working on a refreshed visual identity and I have an ask for you all - to vote on two options. But first, I wanted to highlight some additional context for you.

No changes to the product or site design, yet

What we are sharing is the high level in-progress work, which you could say only applies to the marketing world – our logo, color palette, typography and illustration - and how they apply to off-site concerns like the corporate websites, blog, social media posts etc.

However, over time this will begin to slowly and intentionally evolve how the websites look & feel to use (ok, the header logo might need to change at first). We’ve started discovery on this, as you may have seen, so keep that in mind when voting. We will of course carry out the normal due diligence around research, accessibility, and further consultations with you as normal.

One network, one name

During the process we realized we needed to radically simplify our offerings; we have too many confusing elements, some which have not been touched in a long time. This is creating needless friction, particularly for people who haven’t heard of us, for newbies and for our business audience. In this new brand vision, all Stack Exchange sites will continue to exist, but under the Stack Overflow name & brand.

It might feel strange at first, but we think the expansion of what brand Stack Overflow encompasses is actually more reflecting how we have operated for quite a long time already. It's the front door to the depth of the network for the casual user and the name Stack Overflow is as close as we’ve gotten to being a ‘household name’ (our brand equity).

In summary

Simplify recognition: Eliminate confusion caused by two distinct but related brand names.
Improve user experience: Over time we feel this will provide a consistent and unified brand journey across all platforms and communications, especially for new users or customers.
Streamline marketing, communications & legal: Focus all branding efforts on a single, powerful name, freeing us up to move faster and with more intent.
Reflect operational reality: Align our brand identity with the existing dominance of Stack Overflow.
Reinforce market leadership: Solidify Stack Overflow's position as the go-to resource for businesses of all types.

The objectives and choices

You can find a detailed breakdown of the options in this blog post by David Longworth, our Head of Brand, who is leading this brand refresh. A summary of the options is below for ease. To copy from that post, here’s the high level objectives for us to give you some final context:

Expand the definition of Stack Overflow from programmers & developers, to all technology enthusiasts.
Capture the variety of thought & expression across the network today, but be forward-facing for an expanding role.
Be welcoming to a new & wider enthusiast audience, while still appealing to our core audience of subject matter experts.

Option 1

Option 2

Get involved: Cast your vote here!

Please do the following:

Review the blog post with the full overview of each option
Go here to vote
Use answers to this post to give any broader feedback.

Anyone who identifies as a part of a Stack Overflow or Stack Exchange community – as a reader, a contributor, or in any other way – is welcome to vote. This uses the same system that we use for moderator election voting to track votes. If you like both options, feel free to check both options. We will close the poll Tuesday, July 15th at 14:00 UTC.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Let’s build the future of Stack Overflow, together.

Are those colors for real, because I have a migraine after looking at those options. — Thomas Owens, Commented Jul 10 at 14:06
When anyone have an amazing cheesy idea about any UI component, take a look at this site first: ux.stackexchange.com — Augusto Vasques, Commented Jul 10 at 14:39
WTF am I even looking at? Those colors hurt my autistic brain. I'm sensitive to light, and those colors and chaotic designs are SCREAMING so much I had to scroll past them. — devlin carnate, Commented Jul 10 at 14:40
Option 1 genuinely makes me think of the unpleasant gradient meme. Option 2 is marginally better, but I don't like the colors for either option. How relevant are the colors for the options/the voting? — Lomtrur, Commented Jul 10 at 14:48
Both themes communicate "these sites have no substantive information". It's hard to imagine either of them applied to a site who's virtue is text-based focused technical content. — tenfour, Commented Jul 10 at 14:51
Will submitting "No vote" on the ballot correctly convey that I don’t want either of these options? Because that’s what I used it for. — Otaku, Commented Jul 10 at 14:54
This is starting to look like it's time to dust of What does constructive criticism of a design change look like? . Try to be at least constructive when commenting/asking/opining, please :) — Tinkeringbell, Commented Jul 10 at 14:56
Can you please show the options actually applied to a Stack page? These are just random design pieces that seem to have no relation whatsoever to how the existing pages look and work. — MisterMiyagi, Commented Jul 10 at 15:32
I gently suggest you should all read what @Tinkeringbell wrote, above. I'll add this. "Holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." see item #6 blog.codinghorror.com/what-if-we-could-weaponize-empathy (and note that Stack is NOT really a discussion site, it's a hybrid) — Jeff Atwood, Commented Jul 10 at 18:08
Sorry, what are we supposedly voting on here? I see two images of similarly hideously colored tiles labeled "option 1" and "option 2". You could likely flip coins and have a similar result. As a frontend UI engineer I feel like there should be more distinction between the two. — Drew Reese, Commented Jul 10 at 18:50
@JeffAtwood Among the flippant remarks, the most violent offenders are SE ignoring its most thoughtful and eager contributers who made SE what it is. "Your feedback is valuable" while ignoring the most valuable feedback is more violent than lazy remarks about color schemes. My observation is that SE has cultivated a hostile relationship with its contributors by trying to maintain the optics of community engagement without any actual collaboration, a deep shame for a network whose sole virtue is its community. — tenfour, Commented Jul 10 at 23:47
@tenfour agreed. Trust needs to be rebuilt. Actual collaboration should be demonstrated by iterating and shipping code that reflects community feedback. And I love the way you said "sole virtue is its community". That's true. — Jeff Atwood, Commented Jul 11 at 0:37
@JeffAtwood Shame that SE/SO goes "lalalalalala" when people share actual feedback. Then it wastes time and money on things nobody wants, needs, asked for or will benefit from. There are areas of the site that could use the effort that was put into ... this. — Ismael Miguel, Commented Jul 11 at 1:03

V2Blast · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-16 00:36:12Z

Will you help build our new visual identity?

Yeah, but pff, still a long way to go, I'm afraid...!

Design, between Option_1 and Option_2:

Well, as an Artist, I love them both, I love flashy colours...!

... But as a User of the 'SE'-Network Sites (primarily 'SO' and 'MSO'), fouff-woaf-woaf...!, nah..., I find them both horrible Designs, way too flashy, they both look very amateurish, = made by an art student doing some practical time, => get a professional UX-Designer who can work with colour-palettes...
(Same with all Experiments on 'SO', get a professional Tester before releasing those, one day work for a Professional would catch 80%(+) from the 200 Bugs reported each time...!)

Sitemap:

So "Stack Overflow" is going to become the overall company name and "containing folder" for all Products and all Sites from the 'SE'-Network...!?

Grrr...!, no-no-no...! That was already part of the confusion, between 'SO' the Site about Programming and 'SO' as the name of the company... Keep 'SO' only for the Programming Site, and maybe "Stack Overflow for Teams"...
You are making the same mistake like 'Mozilla' who tried to surf on "Firefox", and 'Google' = a search engine, then the company name, then they made a Browser called "Chrome", that many confused people call "Google", and even 'Google' (the company) are confused themselves, as the 'Chrome'-updater is called "Google Update"...!

Find a new name for the company and the main Portal: => www.stackxx[.]com is still free for example...!
Then you can keep using Stack + or Stackxx + for Products (and future ones) + all/most Sites in the 'SE'-Network...
Then even 'Stack Overflow for Teams' (is/was a stupid name anyway...) could become 'Stack Teams' or 'Stackxx Teams'...
(And "Stack" is short, even 'Ask Ubuntu' could become 'Stack Ask Ubuntu' or 'Stack Ubuntu', 'Super User' => 'Stack Super User', etc...) // This is some real (re)Branding...!

PS: "OverflowAI" is also not a "best" name, better would be "StackAI" or "StackxxAI"...

I not sure that having xx in the site name is a good idea. Its getting a bit close to the problematic sequence of characters in Why does my question get this many views? — Chester Gillon, Commented Jul 14 at 23:34
@ChesterGillon Yep, completely agree, but stackx[.]com was already taken, and (not?!) surprisingly stackxxx[.]com also, ah-ah...! So I just gave stackxx[.]com as an example... // Hum, I actually removed the direct Link to that (still free) Domain, if sbd quickly registers it for some Spam/Porn Site, I could become a Spammer, oops...! — chivracq, Commented Jul 15 at 0:23
Thank you for the feedback. On your naming points, we are using 'Stack' in a similar way to make descriptive words 'ownable', applying this to the other sites is an interesting idea (naming context: stackoverflow.blog/2025/07/10/a-new-era-of-stack-overflow) — David Longworth, Commented 2 days ago

GammaGames · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-10 16:36:10Z

2

I like the colors in #2 (especially the serif font and use of gradients) but I think:

White text on the orange would look better and help with accessibility
The icons look visually busy, which I think is too much with the gradients
I dislike the thinner font and {..} logo, I think it's supposed to be a face? It looks like it should be typable with an average keyboard but is not
Dropping the stack overflowing logo would be a mistake

Going through the blog (it was a face!) I realized what made the icons so busy: forcing a contrasting } character into each! They make the icons harder to parse at a glance and the only benefit I'd see is connecting it with a logo I don't really like 😛

vs

I think a varied set of characters would work though, even if they are a bit silly.

fwiw I appreciate that the company is involving the community so early in the design process, a lot of thought went into these options and I think it shows.

edited Jul 10 at 16:36

answered Jul 10 at 15:05

GammaGames

8997 silver badges15 bronze badges

6

option 2 looks wierdly like a modification of the Super User Logo, only 2 faced.
– Journeyman Geek
Commented Jul 10 at 15:46
1

@JourneymanGeek That's the only reason I knew it was supposed to be a face – but it doesn't fit very well with the apparent aim of simplified, more-streamlined branding.
– wizzwizz4
Commented Jul 10 at 15:48
@JourneymanGeek So the proposed logo is two people... looking away from each other? ·} {·
– MisterMiyagi
Commented Jul 10 at 16:11
2

Thanks for this feedback! It is disappointing that the logomark {..} can't be typed as is.
– Eric Martin Staff
Commented Jul 10 at 16:17
In theory one might throw a pair of diacritic umlauts over a space but that feels wrong and over complicated
– Journeyman Geek
Commented Jul 10 at 16:38
2

@JourneymanGeek There's also U+00A8 or ¨ - {¨} but it doesn't look right. And the degree symbol looks shocked {°°}
– GammaGames
Commented Jul 10 at 16:53
1

@MisterMiyagi No, it's a face
– TylerH
Commented Jul 10 at 16:54

Add a comment |

David · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-11 18:27:18Z

Branding tries to merge truth and aesthetics. Branding is esoteric and abstract. To attempt a good answer from our limited window, we must clarify:

What exactly are we choosing?

Not SO's overall strategy. (Unpopular, I know.) The corporate strategy was announced not teased, so (for better or worse) it's done. Therefore useful answers (for better or worse) are probably limited to the differences between the two branding options presented.

Not the clashing colors. Emphasizing the brutal part of the Brutalist resurgence is not compelling because it is comfortable, but because it is powerful. At its core, the clashing colors are a power move for the sake of being a power move. Both options do this, so whether to do it or not is not the question.

The second option emphasizes personality. The bracket face is a character. The AI offerings present themselves as characters. Contrasted against the first option, the grainy gradients are softer and less definite, more like a "range of opinions".

The first option then is more definite—solid—clear-cut. The book spine metaphor emphasizes knowledge. The Brutalist movement's key idea was that directness was more truthful than precision (the Bauhaus movement). Over time it has also become synonymous with authority. Therefore the first option emphasizes being the place with answers.

Which is better?

Option 2's grainy gradients and "people-first" ideal contradict its colors and the corporate direction. It makes sense for the "Q&A + chat" SE Network sites, but less for the flagship SO site. Again, for better or worse, the SO part is taking the lead. A point against Option 2.

Further, every time I have seen a powerful corporation try the "we're just a cutesy member of the public" stunt it comes off as tone-deaf. (See for example Microsoft Office's rebrand from productivity powerhouse to bubbly buttons for better living.)

Finally, some time-tested principles: Popularity is fickle but truth endures. Better to be boldly wrong than timidly right. Better to be truthful than popular.

Of the two directions presented, I think Option 1 will wear better.

They call "digital brutalism" designs that are brutal on the eyes. IMO a real digital brutalism would be using as little CSS as possible. — roundabout, Commented 23 hours ago

cag51 · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-13 04:58:00Z

A few reactions.

Standardizing everything under the StackOverflow banner is a great idea. In the real world, when you say "StackExchange" the reaction is usually "do you mean StackOverflow? Or is that the same thing? Or like a competitor?". I'm all in favor of eliminating needless confusion.
In fact, I would go even further. It's sort of strange how we have StackOverflow on one side and then regular names like academia or pets or music on the other side, and then weird things like "AskUbuntu" or "MathOverflow" in the middle. I'm sure there will be pushback here, but I would standardize these names.
These are the ugliest freaking color pallets I have ever seen in my life. Is this just rage bait so that when you drop the actual proposal, we'll say "hmm, at least it's not that horrible initial proposal"? If not...wow.
The title question is "Will you help us build our new visual identity?" My answer is: you promised me StackOverflow-branded socks four years ago and they still haven't showed up. So no, you can build your own freaking visual identity. :-)

If the goal of the proposed rebranding is to reduce confusion among the general public, it's concerning that this question is causing so much confusion among the existing user base. — PM 2Ring, Commented Jul 14 at 22:40

roundabout · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-17 07:13:51Z

-5

This is comical. SO is already mostly dead and by forcing flashy design you WILL lose 90% of the remaining users like me. Both options are flashy and not neutral at all. I would have voted no.

answered yesterday

roundabout

2341 silver badge7 bronze badges

4

Many people see in DSE the low average of new monthly questions on the SO and assume that the site is dying or simply repeats what they've read or heard without delving into the data, but this phenomenon is cyclical. To measure the site lifespan, you need to do a traffic analysis. Just to put this into context, there are 9 million monthly search accesses to the SO library alone. When an active user says that the SO is dying, they are making a long-term estimate in the future. Edit: Sorry 9M are Super User accesses monthly. the SO is 17M accesses monthly.
– Augusto Vasques
Commented yesterday
2

Yes, it is. You are not getting answered as quickly as before.
– roundabout
Commented 23 hours ago

Add a comment |

NoDataDumpNoContribution · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-10 21:55:32Z

Wow. I didn't expect to be surprised but I genuinely am. Either of these proposals is much more colorful and artistic than I would have expected. I can't decide between the two and have the strong feeling that my eyes might get tired quickly for both.

However, you should definitely try that out. It's so off mainstream that I would like to see it in practice even if only for some time, because I'm a sucker for people trying out new stuff and boldly going where (not so many) others went before. We will learn something.

So please, please just do it, whichever of the two.

In case you later want to change it again, maybe then aim for more restrained, minimalistic colors and symbols. I personally think it might be too distracting as proposed.

I like the stacked bars symbol a bit more than the {"} faces. But it may just be me.

As for the renaming. I don't think that all the different sites of the network which include all possible topics really are summarized well by stack overflow public platform, but I realize that SO is your only strong brand name. I just would not have repeated it so often.

From the Stack Overflow company we have the Stack Overflow Public Platform Sites and from there the Stack Overflow site, which contains programming questions, just sounds a bit too bulky. But I guess it was a compromise.

Good look with the design. Looking forward to see it in practice and maybe have a discussion after some time in use. Also looking forward to how the individual sites will look like. Hopefully, suitably different.

So... it sounds like you don’t like the design, but also think it looks good, and that it would hurt your eyes, but should also definitely be added? — Otaku, Commented Jul 10 at 22:21
@Otaku Exactly. I obviously feel ambivalent about it, resulting in me wanting to see it live at least once but probably not wanting to see it on a daily basis afterwards. Maybe something like a trial month during which I will endure it for the sake of art. And who knows, maybe it will not hurt my eyes in the end that much. I definitely admire their boldness. — NoDataDumpNoContribution, Commented Jul 10 at 22:36
If making sweeping network-wide changes in branding, design, and functionality took no effort at all, i would totally agree with this answer. — tenfour, Commented Jul 10 at 23:04
thank you for this /s /i post. I hope it will open some eyes. — Vickel, Commented Jul 10 at 23:59

isplayDayameNay · Accepted Answer · 2025-07-15 00:06:21Z

-13

What’s the point of redesigning visuals when the real reason people don’t return or don’t engage is the immediate negative feedback all new users receive on their questions. Not everyone who cooks is a chef so why assume your visitors are all professional suit n tie types. What is the point of collecting high quality answers if the users are literally given negative feedback as the first experience with the site. It is not a welcoming community and a lot of info is over a decade outdated. The same question can have different answers based on context etc. It is entirely off putting to scour the net, books, source code, docs, forums, magrathea or whatever, and resort to making an account, asking your question and having your post locked and downvoted before anyone even engages. Your focus on “quality” is not working, it feels arrogant and discourages learning through true inquisitive thinking and mentorship.

That said… option 1.

answered Jul 15 at 0:06

isplayDayameNay

12 bronze badges

New contributor

6

Certainly, onboarding of new users is a big challenge that's discussed here often. The part where you say: "discourages learning through true inquisitive thinking and mentorship" - well, mentorship would require a structure setup to facilitate that, some sites have developed that initiative and users engage just fine (eg. worldbuilding's (our Magrathea's) sandbox and story-teller's corner irregular-chatroom). As to the curiosity driven learning, for myself personally it's been a great boon in this respect.
– W.O.
Commented Jul 15 at 0:27
2

"the real reason people don’t return or don’t engage is the immediate negative feedback all new users receive on their question" Citation needed. The point of collecting high quality answers is so that one can look them up – which should be everyone’s first experience with the site. Alas, I stopped using SO as it’s quality has been severely degraded by people constantly undermining the quality controls.
– MisterMiyagi
Commented Jul 15 at 7:10
11

" having your post locked and downvoted before anyone even engages." Posts on these sites do not get closed/locked or downvoted automagically, if that happens to your posts, that means users are engaging with it.
– Tinkeringbell Mod
Commented Jul 15 at 8:13

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Stack Exchange Network

Will you help build our new visual identity?

No changes to the product or site design, yet

One network, one name

In summary

The objectives and choices

Get involved: Cast your vote here!

37 Answers 37

Design, between Option_1 and Option_2:

Sitemap:

What exactly are we choosing?

Which is better?

You must log in to answer this question.

Linked

Hot Network Questions

Will you help build our new visual identity?

No changes to the product or site design, yet

One network, one name

In summary

The objectives and choices

Get involved: Cast your vote here!

37 Answers 37

Design, between Option_1 and Option_2:

Sitemap:

What exactly are we choosing?

Which is better?

You must log in to answer this question.

Linked

Related

Hot Network Questions